The Eternal Tomorrow: An 8th Doctor ShortTrip
by That-Other-Doctor
Summary: Professor Sophie Emerson is a genius. She can generate clean energy for the Earth using artificial black holes. She is brilliant, innovative, scrupulous . . . and completely wrong. The Doctor knows his history, and his history doesn't include a Professor Emerson. But someone is trying to change history . . . someone from the Doctor's past. Someone out for revenge, at any cost.


Our wills and fates do so contrary run  
That our devices still are overthrown;  
Our thoughts are ours, their ends none of our own.

– _Hamlet_

* * *

_Traveling through time and space in a police telephone box with an alien who somehow managed to come across as part charming, part enigmatic, and all harebrained crazy wasn't supposed to be synonymous with sitting in a stuffy lecture hall for hours on end,_ Charlotte Elsbeth Pollard reflected gloomily.

She fiddled with the hem of her skirt and sighed, deeply and melodramatically, for at least the fifth time in as many minutes. Though the people sitting in front of her fidgeted in agitation and shot her another round of black looks — despite the fact they looked as fed-up as she was — the Doctor remained blissfully unaware of Charley's boredom. She doubted even a meteor storm or a barbershop quartet of Cybermen could have shaken him from his reverie.

She glanced up at him. Charley had found the lecture's technowhatsits and scientific gobbledygook miles above her. She had long ago given up trying to follow the long equations scrawled across the blackboard, and hadn't really been paying attention for the past hour or so. The Doctor, on the other hand, was enthralled by the speaker — a woman whose voice boomed like summer thunder around the auditorium. His fine-boned face was pulled into a grin of delight, his frost blue eyes were wide with wonder. His long, chestnut hair blew against his temples whenever the central heating popped on, but he didn't even bother to brush it away. His high cheekbones and enraptured expression reminded Charley of a Renaissance statue, of some anonymous hero sculpted by Bernini. There was no denying the Doctor was uncommonly handsome, but a part of Charley she wasn't entirely fond of found him just a tad bit frightening as well.

He was an embodiment of contradiction. Young, but incalculably old at the same time. Wise, but childlike when the mood struck him. A lover of peace, yet destruction and death seemed to follow him like a particularly persistent bad odor. Though he wore his hearts on his sleeve, there was always a film behind his eyes that shielded his innermost thoughts from the scrutiny of the world. Charley respected his privacy as much as anyone, but even she was a little unsettled by what potential maelstroms were brewing beneath his kind, open exterior. It was one thing for Charley to keep a few tidbits to herself; it was another thing entirely for the Doctor to keep his own secrets. And she knew the Doctor had more secrets than even something as dimensionally transcendental as the TARDIS could hold.

_Mind you, you wouldn't know it by looking at him now,_ she thought in amusement, _he's like a little boy in a sweetshop!_

"In conclusion, a specially engineered subatomic particle of stable quantum property would, in theory," the voice of the lecturer rang out across the hall, deep and authoritative, "if accelerated to 0.9 multiplied by ten to the negative sixth times the speed of light and collided with ultra-high-energy cosmic rays, would take on the theoretical properties of infinite mass, thus collapsing a minute point of space-time into a singularity. A stable black hole, if you will. Such an object could not only provide a clean source of power, but following from Einstein's Time Dilation Factor, slow time to such an extent that said power source would be unlimited, everlasting! Perhaps, in the far future, our quantum manipulation techniques may be used to better transport and further mankind's reach into outer space, to explore new realms only before charted by the imaginations of Arthur C. Clarke and Gene Roddenberry. I thank you for your time."

"Oh, thank heavens for small mercies," exclaimed Charley. The Doctor shushed her with a flapping hand.

"I will take any questions down here at the podium. There are refreshments waiting outside, if you'll follow Mr. Hunter . . ."

The audience began to stir. Just about everyone filed to the rear of the lecture hall and out the doors, no doubt drawn away by the enticing aroma of coffee and scones. Charley hopped up to join them, but the Doctor had already leapt to his feet and was hurtling towards the podium at a speed that was never meant to be reached going down a flight of steps. Sighing emphatically, Charley let her visions of raisin pastries and caffeine evanesce from her mind. She hoisted up her long skirt trotted after the Doctor's flying bottle-green coat tails.

There was nobody on the platform asking questions. The lecturer stood by herself, gathering her notes and ignoring the stream of people exiting the hall. Though it seemed a little pitiful to Charley, the lack of a crowd seemed to suit the Doctor just fine. He bounded up to the speaker and cleared his throat.

"Ah, hello! Professor Sophie Emerson, I presume?"

The professor turned from her pile of papers and stared at the Doctor. The first thing that struck Charley was how _young_ she was. She looked to be in her mid to late thirties, not unlike the Doctor himself. She was lean and athletic and loomed over Charley like a street lamp. She had wickedly sharp green eyes, but there were crow's feet in the corners and periorbital dark circles stretching to her cheeks. Her hair was a puffy birds-nest affair that spanned the width of her shoulders. She would have been very pretty if there weren't quite so many creases in her jumper, or if she'd actually bothered to brush her hair that morning.

"You presume correctly," she replied in what Charley realized was an American accent, with perhaps a tiny bit of something else thrown in. Australian perhaps? At any rate, her voice was uncommonly deep and made Charley's bones rattle. "And who might you be, sir?"

The Doctor thrust out a hand. Professor Emerson clasped it politely. "I'm the Doctor. It's a pleasure to meet you at long last, Professor."

She grinned, taken with the Doctor's charm. "There are quite a few doctors here, Doctor. Could you be a little more specific?"

"Erm . . . Doctor Bowman," finished the Time Lord lamely.

Charley coughed, and the Doctor shot her a cross look.

Professor Emerson laughed, "I think I prefer Doctor! It's all right; I don't usually have the pleasure of a civilian audience and I'm hardly about to take issue with something as mediocre as your name. I'm honored that you found my presentation even a trifle interesting!"

Charley didn't offer a comment for fear of offending her.

"On the contrary I found it absolutely fascinating, Professor," said the Doctor. "Your postulations concerning quantum manipulation are leaps and bounds ahead of their time, and your ingenuity warrants admiration."

Professor Emerson looked a mite overwhelmed by the effusive praise. "I appreciate that, Doctor. It's nice to be called something besides a crank every once in a while."

"You are certainly no crank. I would go as far as to say you are one of the premiere scientists of the 21st Century!"

Professor Emerson blushed . . . and Charley's frown deepened into a scowl.

She seemed to take notice of the Doctor's companion for the first time. "And you are . . .?"

Charley took the proffered hand with some stiffness. "Charlotte Pollard."

"Charley to her friends," the Doctor put in.

"Charlotte's fine," Charley reiterated.

"You look like a student. Are you the Doctor's work-study assistant?"

Charley didn't know what a work-study assistant was, but it sounded patronizing and she didn't like it. She said simply, "I'm his friend."

Professor Emerson's enthusiasm would not be deterred. She may have been a brilliant researcher, but Charley thought she was very dense when it came to reading people's emotions. "And what did you make of my presentation?"

_Short of Mama teaching me to cross-stitch, I thought it was the most mind numbing thing I've ever had the displeasure to endure._

"It was fine," said Charley. "Very . . . ah, detailed. Lots of math."

"You know what Sir Arthur Eddington used to say!"

_No, I don't, but I'm sure you're going to tell me._

"He said that evidence and proof is the idol before whom the pure mathematician tortures himself," finished Professor Emerson. "My work is still in its preliminary stages, but my team is making quick progress. While the theoretical calculations check out, proving the applicability of creating a stable black hole is going to be considerably more difficult."

"I am certain that it will not remain the case for long," said the Doctor, a knowing twinkle in his eye.

Charley inwardly groaned. Before the Doctor regressed into that deplorable habit of predicting the future, she clutched his arm and said with mock sweetness, "Thanks for your time, Professor, but we really must be going."

The Doctor furrowed his eyebrows. "We must?"

Again, Professor Emerson was oblivious to Charley's sarcasm or the Doctor's puzzlement. "Oh, don't let me waste your time any further. Perhaps we could talk again, Doctor? I'm not much of a cook, but the faculty dining does a very good chicken pot pie on Thursday nights. You're more than welcome to come as well, Charlotte."

Before Charley could think of an excuse — the Daleks invading, the Time Vortex collapsing, the Doctor loosing his favorite pair of shoes — the Time Lord winked and said, "It's a date! Seven o'clock?"

"Done. See you then."

Charley didn't hear the last bit because she was already halfway up the auditorium steps, dragging the Doctor by his sleeve. She didn't hear anything but the blood pounding in her ears.

* * *

Sophie Emerson was in a fantastic mood as she reentered her office, notes and papers littering the hallway behind her. Not only had she not fluffed her lines _once_ in the lecture's entire two-hour span, someone had been interested! An intelligent, good-looking someone at that. His friend had seemed a little stuffy, but Sophie reasoned the young lady was probably just skeptical. And skepticism, loath as she was to admit it, was perfectly understandable wherever her research was concerned.

"Hello, Niklas!" Sophie called cheerfully to her assistant director, who was hunched over a laptop keyboard, deep in concentration. He hadn't heard his associate enter the room and certainly wasn't used to hearing her so . . . jubilant.

Dr. Niklas Herrscher was originally from Munich, though his name was the only indication of his German heritage. His accent was British and he had the swarthy physiognomy of someone from the Iberian Peninsula. He had deep, dark eyes that always seemed to be staring into the far distance, thinking profound and mysterious thoughts. In contrast to Sophie's scruffy, unkempt appearance, Dr. Herrscher was meticulously well-groomed and wore only the finest three-piece suits. Though the two partners could not have been more different, and were inherently wary of one another, as most scientists are, they got along quite well. Dr. Herrscher was one of a few who entirely endorsed Professor Emerson's work, and Sophie knew that her research would never have left the drawing board without Niklas's help.

"You seem in an amiable mood," he remarked, his tone as dry as a decent martini. He did not take his eyes off the complex mathematical formulae scrolling down the screen of his computer.

"As a matter of fact, I am." Sophie spun around in her swivel chair. For an adult, she was very excitable. "We've piqued someone's interest."

Finally, Herrscher's penetrating stare broke from the laptop screen. "Oh? Do tell, Professor."

"A couple of civilians attended the afternoon lecture on our quantum manipulation techniques, a man and whom I'm guessing was one of his students, a young woman not much older than twenty. She seemed a bit skeptical about the project, but the man was fascinated, and he expressed interest in our future research. You know what that means?"

Herrscher wiped an invisible speck of dust from his midnight lapel. "We are due to receive fan-mail?"

The sarcasm was wasted on Sophie. "Maybe, but it means funding! He seemed like a wealthy-enough guy: nice clothes, fancy hair, the airs and graces of a gentleman. He's probably got money, and better yet, prestige! We could finally begin to make a reputation for ourselves."

"Since when were you one to indulge an interested party solely on the premise of money?"

Professor Emerson colored slightly. "I, ah . . . asked him to dinner. Sort of."

Dr. Herrscher arched a dark eyebrow. "Did you indeed? It seems as though this man made quite an impression on you. In the few years I've known you, you have never so much as entertained the notion—"

"Yes yes yes, point taken." Sophie frowned. "Perhaps I'm getting my hopes up, but there was something about this man . . . something different from all the others. He _really_ seemed genuine. He was definitely a bit of an eccentric, but he cared about the project. It was almost as though he had heard about it before, and wanted more than anything to see its inception for himself. Though that's impossible, of course."

Sophie didn't see the sudden rise of Dr. Herrscher's head, the way his dark eyes narrowed. "Are you suggesting some sort of foreknowledge, Professor?"

"Seemed like it. Though, as I said, it's impossible. I only introduced the concept this afternoon and nobody else in the world would be mad enough to attempt what we're attempting."

"What did this gentleman look like?"

Sophie began to file away her notes as she talked. "Though he was certainly striking, he looked a bit of a pansy, to be perfectly honest. I used to go to Comic Conventions when I was a kid; I know the type. He was tall, wore green velvet, and would have fit in quite well in a period drama from Masterpiece Theater. His friend was younger, but cut just as memorable a figure. She was petite, blond, and quite stunning."

There was silence.

Then Dr. Herrscher began to laugh. It was filled with scathing mirth and what Sophie could have described as scorn.

"Oh, my dear Professor Emerson," chuckled Herrscher, "here I was thinking he was somebody important!"

Sophie glanced up uneasily. She didn't like the way her partner was looking at her. Herrscher had a strange gleam in his eye, and so far as the professor could remember, he _never_ laughed. "Do you know this Doctor fellow, then?"

"Only time will tell, won't it?" Herrscher answered ambiguously. His eyes flashed, and he continued, "In the meantime, it is nearly 5 o'clock. Shouldn't you be getting ready for your . . . ah, meeting tonight?"

"Yes." Sophie ran a hand through her curly tangle of hair, making it puffier than it already was. She seemed in a daze as she shouldered her messenger bag and left the office. "Yes, I suppose I should be."

"Do enjoy yourself," called Dr. Herrscher from his desk. Sophie didn't answer him.

As his partner left, Herrscher hunched his back and entered a series of complicated commands into the computer. The screen went dark and a string of code began to flit across the monitor, faster than any normal human could follow. The code was as mathematically complex as a quantum mechanical formula and used symbols unknown to all but the most archaic of computer programs. After ten minutes of nonstop typing, Dr. Herrscher watched the screen blink back to life. The eerie green light was the color of poison, and cast his stately features in sickly shadow.

SYNCHROTRON RADIATION COMPENSATOR DEACTIVATED

PLASMA WAKEFIELD ACCELERATION AWAITING STARTUP COMMAND

Herrscher steepled his fingers, allowed himself a light chuckle, and then began to type . . .

* * *

"Ready to go, Charley?"

Charley looked up from the Doctor's signed copy of _The Importance of Being Earnest_. She had settled herself into one of the TARDIS's plushy leather armchairs and felt quite unwilling to extradite herself anytime soon, thank you very much.

"Aren't you going to change?" asked Charley. The Doctor was still in his Victorian get-up of green frock coat, embroidered waistcoat and winged-collared shirt. The only thing different was a diamond pin in the knot of his cravat. The clear stone caught the light of the TARDIS's time rotor and glowed a bright, brilliant blue.

"Don't you like it?"

"That's what you _always_ wear!"

"This outfit is quite versatile!" protested the Doctor, a little hurt. "Besides, you haven't exactly changed into the height of 21st Century _haute couture_ yourself!"

Charley's head disappeared behind her book again. "I'm a bit behind the grind with my satirical literature, Doctor. I think I'll stay in tonight."

He pursed his lips in bemusement. "Charley? Are you all right? You've been acting strange all aftern—"

"I'm not going."

The Doctor sighed. He cleared the clutter — empty china cups, old manuscripts, a vintage Jimi Hendrix vinyl record — off the opposite armchair and sat facing Charley, elbows on his knees, torso bent almost horizontal, hands clasped together. He stared at her with wide blue eyes until she felt inclined to peer over the page of _Earnest_.

"What's wrong?" he questioned gently.

Charley smiled thinly. "Nothing! I just didn't have any intention of becoming the proverbial third wheel on your dinner date. I'd much rather find out how Jack is going to win Gwendolyn's hand with Lady Bracknell always getting in the way."

"As much as I appreciate dear Oscar's intellectual farce," said the Doctor, "I would have thought you eager for the opportunity to meet one of the brightest minds of the recent age. Isn't that what traveling with me is all about, living in the grand illusion of time? Experiencing your history?"

"It isn't my history, Doctor. To me, Professor Emerson is just an uncommonly bright button who has just so happened to tickle your fancy."

The Doctor arched his eyebrows as he deciphered her meaning. A moment later and realization flashed across his features. He looked a mite surprised, but Charley remained completely deadpan.

"Is _that_ what you think?" asked the Doctor incredulously.

Charley bristled. "Yes. In fact, it is."

The Doctor laughed. He laughed until he was doubled over and spilling out of the armchair. Charley felt about ready to hit him around the side of the head with his precious piece of "intellectual farce" before he chuckled, "Oh Charley, Charley, Charley. How you've got it all wrong!"

"Well, then," she slapped the book against her thigh, "I'm only human. Perhaps you can sort it out with your scientist chum! Talk it out, _intellectual equal to intellectual equal._"

"No, I didn't mean it like that!" He exclaimed, "This isn't about Professor Emerson, Charley! I'm no more enamored with her than I am with you! This is about her experiments with stable quantum singularities! Rather, her experiments that, in the continuity of Earth's timeline, _don't exist_."

Charley turned to him, an entirely different kind of frown creasing her features. "Come again?"

"Sophie Emerson was a prominent astrophysicist during the middle part of the 21st Century. Though she publicly endorsed the more mathematically sound hypotheses of Quantum Field Theory and String Theory, there were rumors of her dabbling in the fields of fringe science: parallel universes, wormholes, teleportation. There was even a claim of her publishing a paper in an obscure journal describing a method of generating a stable black hole using controlled collisions between ultra-high-energy cosmic rays and local subatomic particles accelerated to the speed of light."

"How do you know all this?" Charley asked before she mentally slapped herself and thought, _Silly question_.

"An old friend of mine wrote the article," the Doctor explained hurriedly, "but that's not the point. The point is while Sophie was certainly ahead of her time in terms of her theoretical work, her postulations never came to fruition! In fact, she had an accident in the lab and her work stopped before she proved anything. After a time, her extravagant ideas were forgotten. But, in the presentation we saw today, her quantum manipulation theories were in the _experimental_ stage! That means—"

"Someone is interfering with Earth's history!" Charley finished. "Speeding up her black hole thingamadohickie."

"Exactly!" The Doctor grinned cheekily. "What better way to find out what's going on then to go to dinner with the person at the center of it all? After a good dinner one can forgive anybody. Oscar Wilde said that. So . . . are you coming?"

She sighed, "I suppose."

"Terrific! Here, I picked something out. Suits you."

As he stood to leave, he tossed Charley a purple cocktail dress. Where he had been keeping it she didn't know, but it _was_ rather lovely. She tried to distract herself with the new article of clothing scavenged from the TARDIS's infinitesimally large repertoire of period accoutrements, but something unnamable refused to stop nagging at the back of her mind. "Doctor?"

"Hmm?" He was absorbed with something on the scanner and didn't turn her way.

She stared at his back for a little while, watching his chestnut hair bounce around his collar. He was whistling "In the Sweet Long Ago" to himself in his own peculiar, off-pitch strain. His long fingers flitted across the control console like a pianist dancing over his ivory keys

_I'm no more enamored with her than I am with you!_

Charley chomped down on her tongue and said nothing. She was an Edwardian Adventuress, a Citizen of the Universe, not a jealous schoolgirl. She had made enough of a fool of herself already.

"Thanks for the dress."

The Doctor turned and shot her a bright smile. "My pleasure, Charley. My pleasure. This is going to be fun! Trust me."

She bundled the garment under one arm and delved deeper into the TARDIS to change. She refused to admit it, even to herself, but whether out of jealousy or an inherent sense of foreboding, she was getting a very bad feeling about this Sophie Emerson . . .

* * *

She grunted with pain as she grazed her forearms, yet again, on the metal bolts jutting from the narrow walls. The air duct was caked with week-old grime, beetle carcasses, and some squishy detritus that Charley daren't think about for long. It was hard to breathe in the cold, stale air. The motes of dust tickling her nose threatened to make her sneeze. Her lovely lavender dress and dinner jacket were streaked with grey muck and her blond hair felt in sweaty strings over her eyes. All in all, she was _not_ too pleased with the Doctor. Not in the slightest.

_"Why can't I talk to the scientist and you find the lab?" she had protested._

_"Because," he explained patiently, "if she is involved someway with the adverse manipulation of Earth's history, my disappearance would make for something of a suspicious coincidence, wouldn't you think? It's far less risky if you go."_

_"How will I know where to go?"_

_"Don't worry, her lab shouldn't be far. It would be big, cordoned-off and isolated. If we are to place stock in her preliminary calculations and apparatus designs, there ought to be a large, circular loop in the center of the room. Sort of a huge metallic doughnut. Once you reach the lab, start searching."_

_"Searching for what?! I'm not even from this century! How am I supposed to know what I'm looking for?"_

_"Something that seems out of place, anachronistic . . . wrong. Trust your instincts, Charley."_

_"And why can't I just walk up to her lab and knock politely like any normal human being?"_

_The Doctor inclined his head in the direction of a small camera mounted in the corner of the room. "This is the 21st Century, Charley. CCTV is everywhere, and nothing goes unnoticed. Discretion is the better part of valor, eh?"_

_"Oh, fiddlesticks," Charley had huffed. "Fine, I'll go. At least I won't have to listen to your scientific nonsense or watch her flirting."_

_"What?"_

_"Never mind, I'm going."_

_"Oh, and Charley?"_

_"What?" She parroted._

_The Doctor swallowed and said quietly, "Be careful."_

"Oh, I'm being careful," Charley grumbled, "careful not to break my neck!"

As if fate meant to accentuate her point, she rose slightly on her elbows and banged her head on the ceiling of the duct. The sound echoed down the narrow chamber and for a split second, Charley froze in sheer terror. Over the panicked pounding of her heart, she could hear nothing besides the hissing of the old ventilation system. Once her stomach no longer threatened to jump up into her throat and suffocate her, she began to move again.

Charley followed the waft of fresh air and eventually crawled to the base of an air grill. Peering through the slitted grates, she saw a huge room filled with electronic equipment and blinking, flashing lights similar to the ones on the TARDIS console. Great bulks of the machinery had been powered down and most of the equipment lay dark and unobtrusive, but the plethora of gadgets still managed to kindle a spark of awe in Charlotte Pollard, who was still, at her most basic, a product of the 1930s.

She pressed her shoulder against the grate; it was so old and rusty it gave way almost immediately. Charley squeezed through the gap in the wall and climbed to stiff, sore legs. Her dress and jacket were beyond repair. A part of her wondered why the Doctor had bothered to make her change into them in the first place. The other part of her, however, was soon enthralled by the mad laboratory in which she found herself. Sleeping computer consoles, crystalline vacuum tubes, and intricate balls of cable were scattered around a massive metal loop. The structure seemed to dominate the center of the room, and it looked _exactly_ like a giant metal doughnut, Charley realized grudgingly. The boggling arrangement obviously made some sort of sense, but like a string of computer code or a complex mathematical proof, Charley couldn't begin to make hide nor hair of the pandemonium. How the Doctor expected her to find something "odd" in a place this size, she didn't know.

"Oh well," she whispered to herself, "nothing ventured, nothing gained."

She took one step into the black laboratory . . .

. . . And then a spotlight blazed to life, blinding her.

Charley threw up her hands to shield her eyes, but the light burned through her closed eyelids and made her vision dance with red spots. The back of her eyes ached with a sudden blinding headache.

"_Well well well. Who have we here?_"

The voice seemed to reverberate from all around her, bouncing off the sleek metal walls. Charley shouted, "Who are you?"

"_An interested party, my dear. Though, you are not the careless fool I had expected to come blundering into my trap._"

"Careless fool?! Blundering?! Now wait just a moment—"

"_Where is Miss Grant?_"

Charley frowned. "Miss who?"

"_No matter. The "who" is of little consequence. I shall have the truth out of you soon enough._"

The light shut off. Charley buried her head against her palms and rubbed her eyes as the pain slowly subsided from her throbbing head. As her vision returned and the laboratory swam back into focus, She felt someone grab the collar of her jacket with one hand and twist her right arm up behind her back with the other.

"I beg your pardon—!" began Charley, but yelped as the unknown assailant shook her savagely and gave her arm an extra twist.

"I can't afford to waste a great deal of time," a smooth voice purred in her ear, "and a considerable amount of unpleasantness may be saved with your cooperation. Now . . . where is the Doctor?"

"I don't know . . . who you're talking about," snarled Charley.

She cried out as she felt her shoulder snag in its socket. A lance of pain raced down her arm to the tips of the steely fingers that gripped her wrist like a vice.

"I will ask again, my dear, and this time I expect an answer. Where is the Doctor?"

Charley had tears in her eyes and her arm felt like molten lead, but she remained resolutely silent. The grip grew so tight she thought his fingers would bore straight through her bones and out the other side of her wrist.

"Very well. On your own head be the consequences."

The grip slackened as the stranger dragged Charley across the laboratory. Ignoring the pain in her right shoulder, she clamped her teeth on the hand holding her jacket collar. She tasted the iron tang of blood and winced as the man roared against her ear. Charley tried to wriggle out of his grip but instead felt herself falling forward as her assailant let her go. Charley landed on the concrete floor with a thud that knocked the wind out of her lungs. Before she could scrabble forward on her elbows she felt a slick hand grasp a clump of her hair and heave her to her feet. Charley screamed with furious indignation and pain as the hand wrenched her head around. She met beetle-black eyes that glittered like obsidian in the dark. Charley had never been a very religious girl, but for a moment she thought she was gazing into the face of the devil himself. Her face went chalk-white and breathing suddenly seemed very labor intensive.

"You will tell me where the Doctor is," the dark man stated calmly, as if for all the world they were discussing stocks and bonds.

"I will not," Charley seethed through gritted teeth. The pain was enormous, but she did not give him the satisfaction of seeing her fear.

"You will," he growled. His eyes seemed to telescope down into fathomless inky pools, drowning her in clotted sockets of black blood. "You. Will. Obey. Me!"

Then his eyes became razors, driving forward and cutting into her skull. Charley managed a long and tortured scream before she choked on her own breath and everything . . . stopped.

* * *

"What I find fascinating," the Doctor muttered through mouthful of Darjeeling tea, "is how you intend to prevent the point singularity from expanding. It is well known that nothing can escape the gravitational pull of a black hole once it begins to consume large quantities of spacial matter, and yet, evidently, you have found a way of circumventing the problem."

Sophie Emerson smiled. "It's a matter of equal and opposite reaction, Doctor. As the size of the singularity increases, its rate of entropic decay increases exponentially. The massive gravitational attraction works against itself because, after a time, the black hole becomes unable to find enough matter to gorge itself. And according to the preliminary calculations, the first black holes produced would be subatomic in size and should evaporate relatively quickly by way of Bekenstein-Hawking radiation. We have nothing to fear."

"I find that people with a superfluous amount of confidence often find themselves very shaky ground."

"I understand your reservations," she said genuinely, "and to a certain extent I share them. Black holes are not objects to be trifled with. Even in a laboratory setting, if I or my assistant were to approach the event horizon of the artificial black hole generated by our looped particle accelerator, we would be unable to extradite ourselves from the gravity well."

"Past the point of no return. Oblivion," murmured the Doctor.

"What lies at the end of a black hole, have you ever wondered?"

"As I said, oblivion." A haunted look flashed across the Doctor's features. "The Howling. The Void."

Professor Emerson thought she knew his meaning. "Interesting thought, isn't it?"

"I find it absolutely terrifying."

"Fear is not the antithesis of discovery, Doctor. In fact, the latter often occurs in the presence of the former. Still . . ." Professor Emerson turned from her steaming pot pie and gazed through the window. The night was thicker than pitch, but the light from the dining hall haloed a curtain of crystalline snowflakes as they drifted past the glass; they sparkled like stars in the black firmament of the sky. "There is always fear. Fear of the unknown, fear of being both mentally and morally overwhelmed. A black hole is the universe's last embodiment of true fear. What is the absence of everything? How can we even begin to envision . . . nothingness?"

The Doctor's stare went beyond the snow and the night. "Nothingness in of itself is an absence of understanding, of comprehension. Life becomes nonsensical and reality becomes a parody. No manner of science can explain a complete overhaul of the natural laws of the universe."

"You understand why I'm trying my best to rectify that," the Professor said firmly, "too many problems, too much suffering, is caused by fear. I envision a new future where nothing in life is to be feared, only understood."

"Marie Curie said that."

"Yes, she did."

The Doctor steepled his fingers and fixed her with a penetrating blue glower. "You present a solid moral argument, but has it ever occurred to you, Professor, that your precious technique of quantum manipulation has the potential to be used as a devastating weapon? Not everyone is as scrupulous as you."

Sophie nodded glumly. "Of course it has. It's kept me awake at night more times than I care to remember. The ability to create an artificial black hole could not only monopolize the clean energy industry, but harness more destructive power than the largest atom bomb. It is a true doomsday weapon; even at the experimental stage, if the subatomic particles were to speed up too quickly, or if the synchrotron radiation compensators were to be neglected, the non-rotating quantum singularity would grow exponentially beyond the limits of Bekenstein-Hawking radiation. The entire Earth would be consumed by a black hole."

"Then why risk such utter obliteration, Professor? Is your own scientific legacy so important?"

There was a vein of hurt in her words when she whispered, "Of course it isn't! I'm not so shallow that I'd make this entire enterprise all about me! Who do you take me for?"

The Time Lord blinked. "I never meant—"

"Not everything is a trap, Doctor," Professor Emerson said quietly. "There is enough evil in this world as it is without people like you going around creating enemies where there are none."

The Doctor said nothing.

"Don't be like the others. Don't act like some jumped-up old bureaucrat who can't see past his own 401K. And don't try to be a hero, because there's no Lex Luther here. Don't naysay for the sake of bloody well naysaying, because you're better than that. You're different. You're special. I am not a bad person, so don't make me into a mad scientist just because you need to find something to mend, something to fix. Use that brilliant mind of yours and know when to take a break every once in a while. Just trust me. Please."

The Doctor stayed silent, wondering if Sophie understood the gravity of her words. As he sat and observed, he thought the periorbital rings under the professor's eyes looks a tad shade darker, the crow's feet a couple millimeters deeper. She had given that speech before, appealed to dozens of others who had barely acknowledged her with a laugh and a budget slash before throwing her back into the shadows of scientific obscurity. The Doctor was the first person to have taken her work seriously in a long time, and Professor Emerson was desperate for his acceptance.

"I trust you," he said.

She let out a long and shaky sigh. She wore a small smile, but the Doctor could detect no happiness in it. "Just like that?"

"Isn't it enough?"

She chuckled. "You _are_ special, Doctor. It's little wonder Dr. Herrscher remembered you from the last time your paths crossed."

The Doctor promptly spat his mouthful of tea across the table, soaking Professor Emerson's spotless white blouse. All desire for philosophical chitchat vanished. She was about to snap some very choice words when the Doctor blurted, "What did you say?!"

"I said, why the fu—"

"No no no, before that. And watch your language," added the Doctor. "That name . . . what was it?"

"Dr. Niklas Herrscher. He's the associate director of the department and my research assistant."

The Doctor blanched. His pursed lips had turned blue. Professor Emerson swallowed her anger and looked at the man in concern.

"Doctor," she asked slowly, "what's happened? What's wrong with Dr. Herrscher?"

"Charley . . ."

The Doctor shoved his chair away from the table and bolted from the faculty dining room. Professor Emerson forgot her half-eaten dinner and bolted after him. Her chair skidded out from underneath her and she had to vault over it to avoid tripping. She had not run track in over ten years, and was beginning the gage the measure of her unfitness she hurried after the Doctor. He had already turned the corner and was sprinting down the entrance hall by the time she managed to gasp, "Doctor! What's wrong?"

The Doctor wheeled around at the sound of her voice. Professor Emerson had to slide to a halt to avoid barreling into him. "What is the quickest roundabout way to your laboratory?" he demanded. "Is there an entrance not located within this building? We have to avoid cameras."

Sophie's eyes narrowed in suspicion. "My lab? What do you want with my lab?"

"Come on, come on! Back door. Where. _Now_."

"It's around the far side of this building complex, section 314. We can reach it by cutting across the courtyard. But why do you want—oh, wait for me!"

He was already running, forgetting her as quickly as he had dropped their conversation in the faculty dining room. The last glimpse Sophie got of the Doctor's face was one of dark foreboding — the same haunted look that had clouded his eyes as he talked about the nothingness laying at the end of a black hole. A primal fear gnawed at her gut, and Professor Emerson was suddenly filled with an inexplicable sense of dread.

"Nothing in life is to be feared. Only understood," she reaffirmed. She really wished she didn't sound as though she were trying to convince herself.

The professor trailed the Doctor through the front doors of the dining hall and into the silent flurry. They dashed over the slushy sidewalks and sent chunks of brine flying out from under their feet. Their footfalls were muffled in the soundless darkness, their breathing was as hushed as the falling of the snow.

The Doctor seemed to know where to go. He circled back around the dining hall, careful to avoid the occasional security camera, and then slid to a stop in front of a nondescript grey door. He procured his sonic screwdriver from his depthless pockets and flicked it over the frozen lock, muttering obscure curses against the weather. Professor Emerson was not as graceful on the slippery slush. She sent her arms pinwheeling to stop herself from slipping onto her bottom. Eventually, she recovered her footing and huddled next to the Doctor and his gadget. A biting wind whipped between them and Professor Emerson shivered. In all the commotion, she had forgotten her coat. And her staff card. And her keys.

"I haven't got—"

The Doctor jumped at the sound of her deep voice. He hurriedly clamped a hand over her mouth and hissed, "Do you think you could manage to be a _little_ quieter please?"

She pried his fingers away and whispered hoarsely, "I don't have my keys!"

"No need." The screwdriver made a tiny buzzing hum as its sonic modulator vibrated against the lock. Professor Emerson stared in amazement.

"You're using soundwaves to exert a physical force on the pin and tumblers remotely."

"Yes." The Doctor sounded distracted.

Professor Emerson wanted to inquire further but instead forced herself out of her scientific reverie. Brushing over the Time Lord's curt answer, she asked the difficult question, "Doctor, what the hell is going on here? Please tell me before I find reason to contact the campus police."

He turned to her. His eyes glowed in the near darkness; they reflected the snow and burned like white fire. "You ought to know, oughtn't you?"

Professor Emerson looked affronted. "I haven't got the faintest idea what you're talking about!"

"I really do hope that is the case, Professor. Believe me, I do. Because if the alternative is true, and Charley has been harmed in any way," he turned back to the lock, but his voice was very low and very dangerous, "I will utterly destroy you."

She surprised herself by not feeling particularly angry or frightened. More than anything, Professor Emerson was insulted by the threat. The Doctor held no power over her, and a part of her wanted to give him a very generous piece of her mind to that effect. On the other hand, she was not so dense when it came to interpreting people's emotions that she couldn't see that the Doctor was extremely worried. She was no stranger to stress, and whatever was going on, the Doctor truly believed his young friend was in danger.

"Doctor, I know you're worried, and quite frankly, you're beginning to worry me too. Just tell me this," she asked, "what does any of this have to do with Niklas Herrscher?"

The Doctor let out a humorless bark of laughter. "Didn't you take German, Professor?"

"Of course I did, I'm a physicist! Besides, Niklas is German."

"Then allow me to recommend a brush-up in the near future."

She snorted, "Excuse me?"

The Doctor glared at her. "What's in a name? Herrscher. Herrscher. What is Herrscher?"

"Herrscher is the German word for Ruler or Sovereign," Professor Emerson said irritably, none the wiser.

"Exactly." The lock clicked, and the door swung open into the gloom. The Doctor murmured, "Ruler, Sovereign, Potentate. Or in a more obscure, colloquial dialect, Herrscher or Herrchen means—"

"Master," boomed a voice from the shadows. "Resourceful as ever, my dear Doctor. It is so gratifying to hear you work it all out."

A man stepped into the light of the doorway. He was on the shorter side but radiated an aura of power and authority that made him seem three heads taller. He wore a sleek Nehru jacket and black slacks that blended into the shadows. He had a neatly trimmed goatee streaked with silver and a pair of beetle-black eyes that burned with equal measures of genius and madness. In his hand, he held his tissue compression eliminator.

"I knew this scheme reeked of something over-bloated and tawdry," growled the Doctor. "Laying it on a bit thick with the name, weren't we?"

"I would feel inclined to agree with you. But wouldn't you know, your precious humans can be utterly obtuse when it comes to using their common sense." The Master stole a glance at Professor Emerson. "Even the most intelligent of them."

Professor Emerson gaped at him. "Niklas? What's going on?"

"Oh, this isn't your assistant, Sophie." The Doctor looked if anything slightly apologetic. "I'm afraid he isn't even the real Niklas Herrscher, if such a person ever existed. This man is the Master, a fiend who glories in chaos and destruction, a criminal mastermind whose presence is guaranteed to cause an obscene amount of suffering and death."

"You do me credit, Doctor." The Master gave his enemy a cursory head-to-toe scan. "My word, we have polished ourselves up a bit! What model are we on now? Four? Five? You fritter away your lives so unceremoniously."

"Eight. And you're not one to talk about wasting regenerations. You go through bodies like the Brigadier goes through razor blades."

He chuckled. "Your past, my future. So much time and so little change. You are older and some would argue wiser, and yet still you feel inclined to interfere at every available opportunity. When dear Sophie said a man had attended the lecture wearing green velvet and totting around a pretty young companion I had naturally assumed him to be your predecessor from the . . . ah, _house arrest _days."

The Doctor bristled at the mention of his companion. "Where is she? Where is Charley?"

"Charley? Is that her name? Jo, Charley . . . one would think you were taxiing a primary school in that sorry lash-up of yours you so laughably call a TARDIS . . ."

"Where is she?" demanded the Doctor. He took a menacing step towards the Master.

"She is assisting me with Professor Emerson's research," he said nonchalantly, ignoring the Doctor's anger.

Professor Emerson pushed the Doctor aside and strode up to the Master. She loomed over him as she snapped, "I don't know who the hell you are or what you're playing at, but if you think I'm going to allow you to kidnap innocent young women or mess about with my quantum manipulator you've got another thing coming."

The Master looked amused. "Oh, Professor, we're far past this project's point of no return. It is due to my genius that I was able to get your lumpen, pathetic excuse for a time lock out of the doldrums of your primitive human mind in the first place. I'm hardly likely to halt our years of hard work just because of your threats or the Doctor's puerile attempts at interference, now am I?"

"Time lock?" Sophie parroted.

"Didn't I say?" The Master smiled wickedly. "Your so-called stable black hole will not provide this little world with unlimited clean energy. It was never meant to and now it never will. It will, however, create a mechanism whereby an event or series of events will be rendered unreachable by any form of time travel, nonlinear or otherwise. The singularity generated by the collision of subatomic particles and ultra-high-energy cosmic rays will expand and trap this world on the wrong side of the event horizon. To the perspective of an outside observer, the dilation factor will slow time to a crawl around the Planet Earth. Tomorrow will be eternal, trapped forever in a time lock. But to the perspective of the human race, the Earth will be slowly and inexorably consumed by the raw gravitational might of a black hole, wiped clean from the face of existence.

"All thanks to your insight, Professor Emerson. It wouldn't have been possible without you."

Sophie's head spun with the horrendous implications of what Niklas Herrscher — the Master — intended to do with her research. Her hard work was to be brutally misused in the most abhorrent and lethal fashion. And the worst part was . . . it was entirely possible for him to succeed. The Doctor couldn't even find it within himself to be angry. He just stared at the Master, shell-shocked and absolutely stunned.

"You would destroy every person on this planet," he whispered in horror, "billions of lives, and countless trillions of possible future lives obliterated in an instant. What could possibly constitute such mindless destruction, even from you?"

The Master's mirthful smile vanished and his eyes hardened. "It upsets you. That in of itself is reason enough!"

"I will stop you!"

"Not so long as I have _her_ you will not."

The Master snapped his fingers and a second figure shuffled out of the darkness. Professor Emerson immediately recognized the hunched, shivering figure of Charlotte. Her blond hair stuck up in clumps and she held her right arm limply at her side. Suspicious speckles of maroon dotted her collar. Her eyes were black, empty holes that gazed at her and the Doctor without a trace of recognition.

"C-Charley?" asked the Doctor, his hearts clenching.

Charley turned to the Master in puzzlement. "How does he know my name? Who are these people?"

The Master lay a fatherly hand on Charley's shoulder and did a frighteningly good impression of the Doctor's voice. "That man is the evil Time Lord renegade I was warning you about, Charley: the Master. I _told_ you he would be up to no good! And look, Professor Emerson must have been in on his evil schemes the whole time!"

Sophie exclaimed, "_What?!_"

"Charley, snap out of it!" ordered the Doctor. "_He_ is the Master, not me! He's hypnotized you!"

"Do you take me for an idiot?" snapped Charley. The Doctor clamped his mouth shut like an admonished child.

"Listen to him, Charlotte!" pleaded Professor Emerson. "You've got the wrong man!"

"And you!" Charley rounded on her with unbridled fury. "The Doctor trusted you! He was willing to believe your lies because he thought you were brilliant and he _liked_ you! How could anyone find it within themselves to throw _that_ away?!"

The Doctor looked as stunned as Professor Emerson.

"Never mind that now, Charley." The Master assured her soothingly and handed her his TCE. "Bring them inside."

Charley took it eagerly and jabbed it against Professor Emerson's back. Sophie didn't know what the weapon was supposed to do but if this Master guy was divvying it out to his disciples then it couldn't have been anything pleasant.

As Charley herded them inside at gunpoint, the Doctor turned and looked earnestly at his friend. "Now, Charley . . . would the Doctor you know ever ask you to threaten someone with a gun?"

"He never would," she snapped, "but I certainly will! I won't let you destroy my home!"

"The Master _will_ destroy your home unless you can break his hold over your mind."

"Your laudable efforts won't do any good, Doctor," the Master called over his shoulder. He led them towards the center of Professor Emerson's laboratory, towards the massive particle accelerator. "So far as your young friend is concerned, our roles are reversed. I am you and you are me. It is her loyalty to you that is preventing her from breaking her conditioning. Were I a frivolous man I would find it rather touching."

"You are violating Charley's faith in me!" said the Doctor bitterly.

"I am simply utilizing a resource. Like Professor Emerson, for instance." The Master reached his laptop computer and began to input the startup command sequence. Charley's hold on the TCE prevented the Doctor from interfering. "As Time Lords we both know that altering a timeline is no easy feat. In order to subvert Earth's history, I had to become a part of Earth's history, use human technology to bring about human destruction! What was it your dear William Shakespeare once said? 'The wheel is come full circle,' I believe it was."

The Doctor looked pained. "Your quarrel is with me, not with the people of this planet. No manner of destruction can soothe your personal slights."

"Perhaps not, Doctor. But it will certainly make me feel better."

There was a flourish of light across the monitor screen and a tinny electronic voice rang out,

PLASMA WAKEFIELD ACCELERATION INITIATING

WARNING: SYNCHROTRON RADIATION COMPENSATOR NOT ENGAGED

"No!" cried Professor Emerson, her deep voice cracking with emotion. "You'll destroy this planet!"

The Master laughed. "I find it amusing how all of your human acquaintances have such an annoyingly predictable penchant for stating the obvious."

The accelerator began to hum with energy and the LED displays around the room flickered to life. Calculations and reams of priceless data began to flit across the screens in the blink of an eye, lost on the petrified Professor Emerson. The Doctor darted his gaze from corner to corner, from floor to ceiling, desperately trying to think of a plan.

"Plasma wakefield acceleration locked and engaged . . . Miss Pollard safely in possession of a weapon . . . Now I think is time to take my leave." The Master locked the computer and gave a cheery wave. Then, for the sake of leaving nothing to chance, he smashed his fist through the monitor. Glass exploded across the table and the computer clattered to the floor in a twisted heap of metal. To the Doctor dismay, the accelerator did not shut down. "Just to make sure you don't try anything clever."

"How can I?" The Doctor snapped, "Charley still has your TCE."

"And I have no intention of taking it away from her. It is a pity I won't have the opportunity to savor your look of utter humiliation, my dear Doctor, but I certainly don't want to be near here when this little device reaches its critical capacity and turns this planet into a cosmic plughole suspended in space. Goodbye, Doctor. Believe me when I say it has not been a pleasure."

"Ditto," muttered the Doctor.

"Professor Emerson, Miss _Pollard_ . . . adieu."

The Master turned on his heel and walked across the laboratory. He allowed himself one last mirthful laugh and then stepped into the supply cupboard. With a _whoosh _of air and the grinding of machinery, he and his TARDIS vanished back into the nether-realms of the Time Vortex. The Doctor was left with nothing more than the mocking echo of his laughter and an ever-mounting feeling of hopelessness.

"Doctor . . ." Sophie murmured, too quietly for the still-hypnotized Charley to hear over the sound of the accelerator chamber.

He leaned in close. "What is it?"

"The power transformer is protected against short circuiting with fuses, but there's a failsafe control on the side of the accelerator that detonates the microfuses in the computer core. The destruction of the fuses will immediately shut down the entire system."

"Can we reach it?"

"Yes, I can," she whispered.

The Doctor grinned. "Brilliant. That was easier than I expected. Why didn't I think of that?"

"Doctor?"

"Yes?"

"There's just one problem."

"What?"

"The synchrotron radiation compensators have been turned off. If anyone goes within three feet of that particle accelerator, or God forbid touches it, the radiation spike would kill them."

The Doctor's grin faltered. "Not so easy then."

Charley had to shout to be heard over the accelerator. "Do be quiet, you two! The Doctor isn't finished with you just yet."

Professor Emerson sighed, "I highly doubt any of us will ever see that evil man again, Charlotte. Not in this lifetime, anyway."

The cylindrical tubing was beginning to glow, Sophie noted with dismay. Any minute now, the particles would start to accelerate around the loop and approach the speed of light. The subatomic quarks would take on the properties of theoretical infinite mass and collapse into a point singularity within the lead cube suspended at the head of the loop. Then the baby black hole would grow and consume not only the Doctor, Charley, and herself, but the entire Planet Earth as well. Nothing would be able to stop it.

Nothing.

"Doctor?" Professor Emerson asked again.

"Yes?"

She didn't answer him, but turned around and met his crystal-clear blue eyes. She clasped his shoulders, pulled him close, and planted a featherlight kiss on his cheek. Charley made a noise of revulsion from behind them. Sophie pulled away until she and the Doctor stood nose to nose, barely touching. She was smiling, but there were tears in her eyes.

"Thanks for trusting me. And I am so sorry for this."

The Doctor looked puzzled. "For what?"

"For inventing this stupid contraption in the first place, for trusting Herrscher, for getting Charlotte hurt, for thinking I could hold back fear. And . . . I'm very sorry for _this_."

Professor Emerson head-butted the Doctor and sent him sprawling backwards straight into Charley. There was a shout of alarm and a clatter as the TCE fell out of Charley's hands. As she tried to untangle herself from the Doctor's long arms and legs, Professor Sophie Emerson turned and ran for the accelerator.

As she came close to the curved metal sides the wall of radiation nearly threw her to her feet. The air rippled with the waves of deadly particles, but she grit her teeth and pushed through the barrier. Her hands met a small control panel and the pain that exploded through her body was indescribable. Sophie felt as though her nerves were unraveling, as if every atom were being wrenched apart and every cell detonated like billions of tiny atom bombs. Though her consciousness was slowly and painfully being snuffed out, she forced herself to remember the failsafe procedures. There was a tiny spark of electrical energy as the fuses blew and then the accelerator died.

Professor Sophie Emerson had just enough time to smile with satisfaction before she died alongside her greatest achievement.

An eerie silence filled the laboratory. The Doctor recovered from his fall and stared at the Professor's lifeless body. He said nothing; grief had stolen his voice. Charley shook her head to clear the dizziness and rose to sit next to him. A hand went to her mouth and she teared at the sight of the dead woman. Everything became horrifyingly and devastatingly clear to her as she sat there with the Doctor. Professor Emerson's green eyes were pale, filmy, and unseeing. They seemed to bore a hole straight through the ceiling and into the night sky, into the unknown frontiers of space she would never see.

Charley turned to the Doctor with stabbing accusation.

"You knew this would happen. You said she had an accident in the lab . . . that her experiments never worked. But you never said she . . . that she would . . ."

"I had no way of knowing this would be the price of Earth's history," the Doctor said quietly, his words hollow save for the aching echo of grief.

"She's dead, Doctor."

"Yes."

She sniffed and said bitterly, "That's not supposed to happen. You're supposed to save everyone. You always do."

The Doctor fixed Charley with a gaze filled with such sadness it broke her heart. "It was enough to break the Master's conditioning on your mind."

"Oh, to hell with the Master's conditioning! Sophie's _dead!_"

"I know, Charley. I know."

"We failed." She choked on her words, "We're supposed to make things better, we're supposed to save everyone . . . everyone . . ."

The Doctor pulled Charley up into his arms, pressed his cheek against the sticky tear tracks on her face. She sobbed into his shirt and he ran his fingers through her hair, held her tight, hugged her to him desperately.

"Yes," he agreed quietly,

"We failed."


End file.
